Online Project Management Degree

What is a Project Management Degree?

In every business from product development to residential construction, a Project Manager was leading the group to stay motivated, on-track, and to finish the project on-time and within the allotted budget. For most industries, the Project Manager is the person who is most visible to the upper-management and the clients, as well as, the team performing the work of the project. A degree in Project Management provides the necessary skills to be successful in an important role as team leader, motivator, and liaison.

With the help of a skilled Project Manager, teams and organizations are better able to complete work in a more organized, timely manner. Project Managers oversee all components of a project while leading, encouraging, organizing, and pushing the efforts of their team. It is the responsibility of the Project Manager to ensure that projects are completed by the deadline, regardless of setbacks or changing circumstances. Project Managers learn to map out projects for their team from the starting point to the completion, while keeping the main goal or focus in mind.

It is the Project Manager's responsibility to learn to balance time, money, and the depth of a project. To do so, Project Managers must know when to set priorities and how to organize tasks in a concrete manner; in the event that a task can't be carried out as planned, it shouldn't bring a project to a screeching halt due to poor planning.

One main difference between a project manager and other industry managers is that Project Managers are not responsible for managing business functions, marketing plans, sales, or accounting tasks. Rather, they primarily focus on managing teams working on a project and bringing that project to completion. With that being said, often times Project Managers do not always manage the same group of people. They manage whoever is working on the same project they are responsible for.

Project Managers perform typical managerial tasks, such as creating work schedules, scheduling meetings, responding to emails and phone calls, and reporting to upper-management figures. They also spend time defining goals for projects, analyzing allotted budgets, and working out technical requirements of a project.

How can I get a Project Management Degree?

To become a successful Project Manager, leadership skills and technical expertise of the subject are required. It is important that Project Managers are confident and extroverted when dealing with a team of people. Successful Project Managers are able to balance their assertiveness to get tasks completed without being unapproachable to their team members. Project Managers must be able to delegate tasks, rather than trying to complete the tasks themselves. Facilitation of ideas is important, as well, as Project Managers must coordinate the ideas of many different people or departments to make a project come together smoothly. Finally, flexibility and stress management are key attributes for a Project Manager in order to adapt to changes without losing focus of the goals.

A Bachelor's Degree is required for entry-level positions, but the specific concentration is debatable. Coursework that should be considered by anyone seeking a Project Management position include:

• Planning
• Ethics
• Risk Management
• Team-Building
• Statistical Analysis
• Decision Science
• Cost-Benefit Analysis